Closest Thing to Family
by Joanne Barcia
Summary: "The doctors said you might be able to hear me," he says on the fourth day. "Which is kind of ironic, because that's just what you usually do, right?"


**A/N: Had this idea after a few episodes of Daredevil, waited until I finished the series to write it. So it's set post-1x10. Also, I started writing it in second person from Karen's point of view, and then changed it to limited third-person about halfway through. So let me know if I forgot to change a pronoun, or if the syntax is awkward anywhere. I don't know, other than that... well, first fic for this show, so please, critique away. Thanks! Hope you like it. :)  
**

* * *

Karen is sitting just next to Foggy when he gets the call, leaned back against the arm of her office chair with her feet propped up perfectly on his knees. There's a grin still splitting across her face, a vague soreness in her stomach from laughing at a soft-spoken joke when the phone in his pocket rings out, a quick, shrill tone muffled by the fabric of his pocket.

She doesn't much mind the interruption, and so it seems, neither does he; because he whips the phone out with one fluid motion, slides a thumb across the screen, and still smiles into the phone as he answers.

"Nelson and Murdock," he says, thinly veiled pride at the existence of his own firm still clear to see and hear. "How can I –"

He pauses, just for a moment, and goes right on.

"Yes – uh, yeah. This is Foggy Nelson, what's…?"

And the grin slowly falls from his face, and in an instant, the man jumps up from his seat. Karen's feet fall flat onto the floor as his eyes go wide; his free hand starts to move quicker than she ever thought it could move to grab his things and shove them crudely into his briefcase.

"What do you mean? What's wrong? What happened?"

She stands from her seat and follows as he rushes from the office and all but lunges at his jacket hanging by the door, and she can't help but wonder how his face could have gone from smiling so lightly at her to staring so miserably, terrified into space.

"Yeah, yeah. Okay, I'll be right there."

She suddenly has the slightest idea – and she doesn't like it. Where the faint soreness of laughter had been in her stomach, the tight, heavy feeling of fear starts to settle in and weigh her down.

"Foggy?" she asks, urgency clear and obvious in her voice, as she follows him out the door. "Foggy, what is it?"

They both burst out onto the sidewalk in a matter of seconds, and he doesn't even stop to look her way when he finally, breathlessly tells her.

"It's Matt."

* * *

Of all the adjectives Karen could use to describe Foggy Nelson, she never thought _scary _would be one of them. But what do you know? The edge to his voice, the sudden power in his stance, it all gives her sound reason to never, ever get on the guy's bad side – where all the nurses and technicians on this floor currently seem to be.

"I want to know how he got here and why," he's biting out miserably to anyone within earshot. "Right now, _what happened?_ Who put him here?"

And when not a single person can give him an answer, she finds she can personally identify with the frustrated grunt tearing through his throat, a barely-concealed attempt at a scream.

* * *

Once the doctors manage to calm Foggy down – or find some sort of relative calm, at the very least – they take them in to see him.

Foggy visibly, noticeably tenses at what he sees; and she can't say the sight of a breathing tube extending up from Matt's throat doesn't absolutely terrify her, either.

The wires and flashing monitors and the words _anoxic brain trauma induced coma _and _critical condition _might even add to that terror, if she cared to quantify it.

But she doesn't.

* * *

All Foggy offers the nurse who tries to gauge Matt's coma level on the second day is a loud, frustrated sigh and a round of bitter criticism.

"Of _course_ he's not going to respond to light," he says pointedly, running a hand down his face. "He's _blind._ So get that stupid thing out of his face."

* * *

On the third day, while absolutely nothing medical has changed, Karen decides that perhaps she ought to keep her distance. From Foggy. More specifically, from Foggy when he is in the room with Matt. Which, as of late, is near always.

She doesn't know what it is. Some sort of protective instinct, perhaps, that makes him snappish and on-edge. She can't blame him, though. Not one bit.

* * *

"The doctors said you might be able to hear me," he says on the fourth day. "Which is kind of ironic, because that's just what you usually do, right?"

She lingers by the doorway, looking sadly on at the pair as Foggy receives no answer. Still, he goes on, his voice a rough, sleepless echo amid the chaos of beeping machines.

"You know, for the most part. And if we pretend we're back in college, and you're having a bad day, the whole not-answering-me thing could make sense, too. Like this isn't much different."

"A bad day?" she asks carefully, simply curious. Foggy nods.

"Yeah," he clarifies. "Not just like a… not just one of those days where he stubbed his foot a thousand times on furniture and spent too long holed up in the library studying. Like a really, _really_ bad day. You could tell – or at least I could. I'd come into the room and he'd just be laying on his bed, facing the wall and pretending to be asleep. I'd try to get him to talk about it, but he'd never really feel like answering. Eventually I just stopped trying to make him respond. I kept on talking, though."

"How come?" she wonders, considering the sheer futility of trying to talk to someone who wouldn't answer. But Foggy just glances at her once, a sad smile on his face, before shifting his gaze back to Matt and offering a quiet sigh.

"I guess just so he wouldn't feel so alone."

* * *

"You better not die on me, okay, Murdock? This is my fifth day straight sitting in this stupid chair, and if you make it so I've been sitting here and talking my own ears off in vain, then so help me…."

* * *

"What do you mean you have a 'faint idea' of what put him here? What the _hell_ is that supposed to mean?" she demands, on her feet, staring at Foggy, who just seems to wish he never opened his mouth.

It was off-hand, what he said. Karen probably wasn't even meant to hear it, but she did.

He glances almost guiltily out the window instead of answering, at the darkening city skyline stretched in front of the building. And just when it seems he's going to ignore her completely, when she's about to ask again, he keeps his voice level and quiet and finally responds.

"I didn't mean anything."

"No, Foggy, you meant _something,"_ she pushes, stepping closer until she's level with his face. "You meant something. If you know who put Matt here, why he's breathing through a tube, and you don't say anything, I swear to _God_ –"

He stands from his chair quickly, his legs pushing it back against the wall, and just says, "I don't know who did this, okay? I don't know. And I don't have any ideas about it, either."

"Foggy –"

"Karen. Drop it."

She doesn't know what it is. The desperation in his voice or the overbearing quiet of the room, save for those machines – but she does just that. In spite of herself, she leaves it alone. For now.

* * *

"You won't believe it, Matty, but we had _two_ potential clients this week, coming to Nelson and Murdock for some quality representation."

There is a dampened swell of pride behind his voice; or perhaps one of sadness. Perhaps both.

"I turned them away, though. With only one of us, our defense would only be half as good, I'm sure. Besides, I'm pretty sure they were both guilty, anyway."

* * *

"God, you can't keep doing this, Matt," he whispers once Karen has gone for the night. His voice is pleading. "You can't. Because once you wake up, I swear... I'm not losing you again."

* * *

He drags his feet out the door at a quarter to one in the morning, halfheartedly intent on a warm shower and a good three hours of sleep. Perhaps half a meal upon waking. The time passes far too slowly.

When he finally returns to the hospital, he finds an empty room where his best friend lay just the night before.

And suddenly he can't catch his breath.

* * *

He could cry with relief when he finally sees Matt again, moved away from the ICU, with no tube doing all the breathing and with marginally fewer wires tangling around him. He texts Karen to let her know that the words _critical condition_ have been replaced by _stable._ He lets her know that doctors still come by every so often to tap his fingers and wait for a response. _Wait_ being the key word there.

* * *

Karen walks right into the room just past midday, and the first thing she does is tie a foil balloon to the bedpost.

"It's blue," she whispers, glancing back and forth between Matt and a sleeping Foggy in the chair just beside him. "Light blue on the outside, dark blue on the inside, with stars around the border. It says _get well soon_ in block letters – all different colors. No monkey this time."

She holds it in her hand for just a second longer before letting go and stepping back.

Taking her place in the second chair Foggy must have dragged in from the hallway, she offers, "The doctors said they think you're getting better."

And she trails off, leaving her voice to be replaced by the constant beeping around her. An honest loss for words.

"You know," she starts after a few long moments of staring. "When the… when all those explosions went off around the city a few months ago, Foggy was worried sick about you. Even with a piece of metal in his side, he kept saying he had to get up and find you, since he was the closest thing to family you had."

A pause. Neither Matt nor Foggy begrudge her for it.

"And look, I haven't known either of you for very long, but it's pretty clear that you're his family too. Closer than that. And then there's me; both of you, you gave me a second chance. You're my closest friends. Maybe even my only friends."

She stands, gently pads over to the side of the bed. Running a hand over his hair, her voice goes quiet, her tone firm.

"So they better be right, okay? You better wake up, because I'm not losing one of my best friends. And aside from that…"

She smiles.

"We just got that sign up. The name of the firm is Nelson and Murdock, and I'm sure you know we don't have the funds to replace the sign if that changes anytime soon."

* * *

It is truly a marvel, what coffee can do. Having gone from dead on his feet to completely wired in the span of an hour, Foggy sits in his usual chair, bouncing his leg at an ungodly pace.

"Maybe three cups wasn't the best idea, buddy," he admits. "But hey – anything happens, I'll catch it. I am completely vigilant, here."

And yet, glancing up at the monitors, he misses the minute twitch of a hand below him. The barely-there roll of the head.

* * *

Roughly an hour later, there's another twitch, another vague movement.

That's what Foggy finally catches.

And he just stares for a moment, looking for the smallest confirmation that what he saw was real. He gets it in the form of yet another hand twitch, the tiniest head shake.

A grin spreads across his face, relief through his chest.

"Matt?" he asks, cautious. He receives no answer at first. "Matt."

And Matt Murdock, the vigilante of Hell's Kitchen, jumps in surprise at the sound. His eyes open part way – not that it helps.

"F'ggy?" the man's voice is rough from disuse, and yet it is still the most beautiful thing Foggy's heard in days.

"Yeah. Yeah, buddy, it's me," he replies. "It's me. Just relax."

And instead of doing that, Matt reaches his left hand out, groping at the air until Foggy grabs it. A tactile connection. It lasts for just a minute until the vigilante pulls his hand away and starts to reach farther out.

Foggy gladly lets him feel his face.

"Gave us a scare, there," Foggy admits once Matt's hand falls back onto the edge of the bed, exhausted. His eyes slip closed once again.

And Matt sighs a soft, "Sorry," perhaps meaning it, perhaps not. It sounds sincere enough, but it's difficult to tell.

"You should be," Foggy shoots back, earning a small smile from Matt, who looks near ready to fall right back asleep. But instead, he stays awake to hear Foggy continue, "Eight days in this stupid chair, talking my throat off to my comatose best friend. It's an experience I don't want to repeat. Got that?"

Matt's eyes open again at the admission, and he stares thoughtfully out at nothing. After a stretching moment of silence, he answers.

"Got it."

And if he seems unsure of that answer, Foggy doesn't notice it. Rather, he leans back in his chair, satisfied.

"Can't have you changing that sign too soon," he goes on, his smile widening as his eyes slip shut once more. "Don't have enough money for that."

"Don't you know it, buddy. Now get some sleep. Just make sure to wake up after, alright?"

"Yeah, yeah," the ghost of a smile on his face stays right in place. "Sure thing."

He's asleep again before Foggy can think to make him promise; but that's alright. He does.

* * *

**A/N: Is the ending awkward? I was going to have another part where I delved into coma dreams or NDEs, but it felt like too much. Please let me know what you think! I have an idea for another fic, too, so... until then, I guess! :)**


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